Reborns

[joyfulgirl]

"Lars & the Real Girl" was a sweet movie about this phenomenon.

 

[DreamOutLoud13]

I see Real Dolls as being sex toys, and should be treated as thus. Used for pleasure, as another form of masturbation. But a man having an actual, loving relationship with one of these dolls? Well that's just incredibly sad. It's a case of a man so socially withdrawn that he'd choose to purchase and use a doll as a companion rather than attempting a relationship with a real person. I agree that psychiatric intervention is direly needed.

I mean. It's the equivalent of a woman dressing up her vibrator and sitting it across the table from her while she eats supper, all the while conversing with it.

Which brings me to something I became aware of through a LiveJournal community. I first became aware of this girl after some (rather ugly, actually) stuffed horses she'd made were posted on the community. Soon some people got to talking about why this particular girl had a reputation on LJ.
Apparently some time back, she'd posted about another doll she'd made... a life-size, flat fabric doll modeled after an elf comic character that she was in love with. It was essentially a humanoid shaped piece of stuffed white fabric, with a face drawn on with a Sharpie. She'd admitted that she dressed it up and slept with it every night, and that she'd created a makeshift 'penis' for the doll using a plastic tube. This is a woman (she was at least 30) whose only sexual experience was with a stuffed doll she'd made, modeled after a fictional elf.

This is her doll:

Now that is sad. Someone should just buy her a male Real Doll, or at the very least, an actual dildo to put on her elf doll, instead of a random plastic tube.

 

[yolland]

I didn't see the news story and have never heard of 'Reborns' before, but I don't know that this is that much stranger than adult women who still literally play with the Barbies they collect (dress them up then have 'dinner parties' with them, etc.), or who have a little Chihuahua or Yorkie that they doll up with ribbons and painted claws and carry everywhere, sometimes 'speaking' for them in a make-believe voice (I used to know an elderly woman who did this--she was a nice lady and all, though I could never bring myself to look that poor dog in the eye). Granted, it does up the weirdness factor somewhat that these dolls are apparently so lifelike, but to me it's the pretend 'relationship,' not the appearance, that really stands out--I don't think I'd find it nearly as strange if someone just collected them for aesthetic appeal and stored them in a display cabinet or something. And as for the woman who's apparently so confident that her 2-year-old daughter is just going to loooove playing dolls with her, I'd be dubious about that--seems to me that most kids, male or female, would more likely feel rather embarrassed and freaked out to have a parent who's that into dolls.

 

[DreamOutLoud13]

okay, the image in my previous post failed.

This is what I was trying to post:

 

[Tiger Edge]

What a hottie.